Ancient Medici

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This article may seem complete to the untrained eye, but the gaps in information are still large enough for this elite team of Panauan Ninjas to hide inside of.

This article is about the ancient history of Medici in Just Cause 3.

JC3 volcano island ruins 2 — The largest set of ancient ruins is this city on the eastern coast of the Volcano island in Medici.

Purpose[]

While most of the history of Medici can easily be summarized in the history section of the Medici article, the ancient history of Medici has enough interesting aspects to warrant its own article. This article focuses on the period before the middle ages.

Architecture[]

JC3 ancient ruins — Ancient ruins can be found everywhere. The northern regions have larger and more intact sets.

Ancient Medician architecture closely resembles the architecture of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. There are many ancient ruins in Medici which feature temples, theaters, amphitheaters, triumphal arches, aqueduct-looking bridges and more.

While some temples display typical Ionic order (Ancient Greek) features, like the capital ornamented with volutes, others display a variation of the Composite order (Ancient Roman), with capitals bearing volutes and acanthus leaves. Temples with distinct architectural orders can be found next to each other.

Most Towns in Medici have some ancient, medieval and modern era ruins of large stone buildings. These include classical ruins, Gothic churches/cathedrals and star forts. There are several large sets of ancient ruins in northern Insula Striate and at the Volcano island in Medici, which has been abandoned after an ancient eruption. Larger sets of ancient ruins are all visible on the map.

Other examples of their ruins can be found at:

Unnamed mountain at N 40 46.400 E 5 46.700.
Refugio Umbra is a Rebellion base, converted from a unique set of ancient ruins. These ruins have a large tunnel with a square cross-section.
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Culture and religion[]

Nothing too specific is known about how their religion(s) functioned, but there's a lot of evidence.

The bulls and women statues may both be present at the same set of ruins, but the obelisks are never in the same ruins as the others, possibly indicating that they're a part of a completely different deity, or maybe even a completely different religion.

Tombs[]

The Collectable Items in Medici include "ancient tombs".

These are small circular well camouflaged buildings with a small wooden door. The building has a low, about half meter tall stone wall and a dome-shaped roof that seems to be made of soil. The soil roof is covered with vegetation. The vegetation always has some small blue flowers that are easy to distinguish from the green surrounding nature, but the tombs are still relatively hard to spot. The small wooden door is inaccessible, but the door boards have wide gaps that reveal an at least half meter deep cavity behind the door.

This type of grave is called tumuli, burial mounds, or kurgans.

The tombs' age is unknown, but an indication of age could be the four metal hinges that hold the door and the wooden door itself, neither of which last too many centuries with out the right kind of care (paint and such).

When Rico visits a tomb, he touches the door in a small cut-scene. A small flagpole with a Rebellion flag appears next to the tomb after this. After "paying respects" to the tomb, an Urga Stupka-210 mortar with low ammo will spawn out of the back of the tomb.

Bull[]

Many sets of ruins have an altar dedicated to a bull. The bull altar consists of a wall-mounted bull head directly above a stone sink, mounted to the same wall. These altars are usually surrounded by many new flowers, indicating recent activity.

Some ruins have a large stone statue of an entire bull.

Women statues[]

Several sets of ruins have about 3 meter tall statues of women. All statues are in some way broken, with parts of them missing.

It is unknown why there are missing parts, but Medici has been invaded multiple times by various enemies, who could have vandalized them. Also, erosion, earthquakes and other natural phenomena surely contributed to the stone decay.

One set of ruins is special for having a fresh animal sacrifice, in an amphitheater, surrounded by statues. If the player approaches the animal, the statues move closer while they're off screen. This might indicate that all amphitheater-like areas were used for sacrifices. That specific set of ruins is also listed among easter eggs.

Venus[]

In-game map description of Nacre says: "The history of Nacre is told by its idols. Venus was worshipped in the offshore ruins. But Venus was torn down by the Christians, who worshipped in the church they built at the center of town. But Di Ravello filled in the churchyard to erect a statue of his own image. Who would tear down the statue of Di Ravello?"

This presumably refers to the Roman goddess Venus. It's unknown is this is associated with the woman statues that normally appear in groups.

Obelisks[]

These are also listed among the Easter Eggs in Just Cause 3.

There are multiple ancient obelisks. Most of them have symbols engraved into them and some even have magical eternal fires (possibly as a result of witchcraft). The symbols are still under investigation by player communities, because it is speculated that their code (once cracked) might lead to, or activate, a new easter egg.

There's several ancient stone obelisks in Medici. Each has a white pentagram drawn on one side. There are letters written on the sides of the pentagram. It is believed that the letters are some kind of code for something, but it's unknown what they mean. See the gallery below. The symbols are identical on the island one and the Weapons Shipment Yard one. Feel free to discuss them at the forum.

Currently known obelisks:

At about N 40 42.790; E 5 40.740. There is a group of uninhabited islands. The obelisk is at the western tip of the most southern island.
At about N 40 48.150; E 5 43.870. On the eastern edge of the Montana province is a Wingsuit Challenge called "Mountain Marathon Tour". The obelisk is on the side of a cliff a little to the south-west of the race trigger.
At about N 40 52.400; E 5 37.000. In a cave at Insula Lacrima (part of the Mech Land Assault DLC). This obelisk is unique by being on top of a small pedestal and by not having any symbols carved into it.
The Weapons Shipment Yard port (part of the Mech Land Assault DLC) has a round closed hatch in the woods near its north-east corner. Once opened using the three buttons nearby, there is an obelisk underneath. One button is right next to the silo, but the other two can be tricky to find. One is on a little house on the cliffs behind the silo and the other is on another house in the forest to the west. This obelisk is unique for having has 5 perpetually burning small flames on the side with the pentagram. Staying near it for a while causes music to start playing.
Just south-east of the south-east tip of the Stingray (part of the Bavarium Sea Heist DLC) are ancient ruins. In those ruins is a set of 5 obelisks. They all have multiple small eternal fires on them, despite being under water.